RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN COMMON SCHOOLS.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3295, 6 September 1871, Page 2

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN COMMON SCHOOLS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE INDEPENDENT. Silt, — Tho time being opportuno you will perhaps admit a few idoas from a teachor on education. Tho school is a gymnasium, mental, moral, and physical. This ia its proper function, and must to carried out- by drill, discipline, and driving, on fcho part of tho teacher. Tho exorcise and strengthening of the faculties is its proper work, not the storing of knowledge, excepting what is necessary to further progress. Religion is a matter of conviction, affection, and self-government, and must be instilled not drilled, disciplined, or driven forcibly into it; it cannot be done. Honce tho teacher is not the proper instrument, and tho school not the proper place for so instilling if". It must bo a sorry religion which is drilled into ono, either by the birqh or other means of driving, such as emulation, or declamation, or even by tho love of know- ' ledge itself, or any oilier means .at the disposal of tho public teacher. Wero there no other means of obtaining religious histruHton, then the teacher would have to undertako it, even at a disadvantage, but happily this ia not the case, for in Wellington there avo movo ministers of religion than teachers, and having only this ono branch to teach, while tho public teachor has many. It serins strango that tho clergy should bo so unreasonably eager to throw their most important, and I should say agrfceablo duty, on tho back of a weary animal, however willing it might be. This is clearly a matter for the public to step in, and sny it shall not be done. He muqt be a caroless father who would knowingly commit tho education of his sou in reading, writing, und arithmetic, to an unskiliul teacher, tmcl why should this be done in tho more important affair of religion? "When our children require fish shall wo give them a serpent P" In tho inU-rosts of religion, let it bo taught by the most skilful. And who so woll fitted for this duty as tho clergyman — it has been his lifetime's study, it ia his daily exercise, it is his profession and business. Why should ho seek to commit it to those who have not tlieso ndvantagos, and who have duties euftSciently laborious i ) their proper sphere. Many of us, especially from the north of tho Tweed, know by experience how our religious ideas have suffered by having thorn hammered into us by the cano, serving only as an antidote to religious monomania; ns innocululion to small-pox. But this questionable advantago even clergymen themselves would surely forego. Hoping that tho intelligent public, with whom rc6ts Bololy tho decision of tho question, will give these few remarks a caroful consideration, and decide for. the beat iuterosts of true religion, — I am, &c, A Public Teachee. Wellington, 4th Sopt., 1871.